Sociology Prof. Alan Schnaiberg said the funding rejection was the most honest letter he’d ever received.
“It said: ‘We’re trying to show this in our research and you are trying to show the opposite. We can’t possibly fund you,'” he said.
Such is the plight of scientists, whose quest for knowledge frequently runs head-on into ethical dilemmas, a panel of professors and an activist told about 40 students Monday night in a forum in Harris Hall.
Panelists discussed the need for gender equality in the scientific community, protection of animal rights and ethical requirements of physician-assisted suicide. Schnaiberg was joined by environmental engineering Prof. Kimberly Gray, DePaul University biomedical ethics Prof. John Wall, and Peggy Conniff, executive director of the Anti-Vivisection Society of Chicago.
Tainting scientists’ research
Scientists’ research can be tainted by the priorities of institutions that fund specific projects, Schnaiberg said.
“Scientists really rely on other mechanisms over which they have little control,” he said.
And when scientists speak up about flaws in the system or pursue unconventional research topics they can be ostracized from the scientific community.
“Paradoxically, it’s easier to get controversy published in books than in prestigious journals, which don’t want you to rock the boat or disturb the current paradigm,” he said.
Gray said there are inherent biases when “most science tends to be done by one gender.”
“The old idea that women and minorities need to be twice as good to succeed — this really isn’t true,” she said, citing a study that examined the promotion of women in higher academia. “Women needed to be 2.5 times as good as men.”
The research showed women have as many articles published in equally prestigious journals as men. But the study found that the defining factors in receiving tenure were being male and knowing someone on the review panel.
Gray cited a New York Times article that documented discrimination in salary, space, teaching assignments and other factors against 15 professors — the only women among 209 total tenured professors — at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“MIT acknowledged bias against women professors but kept pointing out it wasn’t intentional,” she said.
The attitude of the scientific community toward animal testing is that it is “a necessary evil,” Conniff said.
Her group is looking to push the line that separates humans from animals further toward “our nearest (animal) relatives.”
“I don’t think the criteria is that they’re cute and cuddly, but their capacity to suffer,” Conniff said.
Animal testing isn’t always effective because animals are physiologically, anatomically and methodologically different from humans. Using animal testing to predict for effects on humans can be misleading because “just as one human study doesn’t apply across age, race and gender,” animal testing can yield results that are different for humans.
Wall told a story about a physician who agreed to euthanize an old friend who was on the cusp of a painful bout with cancer. He said the debate over physician-assisted suicide should become conversation among all interested parties, including family members.
“Don’t just ask what the patient wants and don’t just tell the patient what you as a doctor think,” he said. “You have to have a conversation.”
He warned, however, that making assisted suicide acceptable “socially, publically and legally” could be a slippery slope toward making “the choice become an obligation” for gravely sick individuals.
Justice for All, SEED and Peace Project sponsored the event.
